ED officer, under CBI scanner in corruption case, dies by suicide

An Enforcement Directorate officer, who was under the scanner of the agency and the CBI in an alleged corruption case, has died by suicide. The body of Alok Kumar Ranjan was found on a railway track in Sahibabad near Delhi on Tuesday.

Alok Kumar, a resident of Ghaziabad, was on deputation with the ED in New Delhi. Earlier, he had worked with the Income Tax department. Recently, he was questioned twice by the CBI in an alleged corruption case but was let off due to lack of evidence.

Alok Kumar Ranjan's name had cropped up in a bribery case after an assistant director of the ED, Sandeep Singh, was arrested by the CBI. The CBI received a complaint from a person that Singh had reportedly demanded Rs 50 lakh for not arresting his son. The agency then laid a trap and Singh was caught red-handed accepting a bribe of Rs 20 lakh in Delhi.

Singh reportedly also took bribes from a Mumbai jeweller whose store was raided by the Enforcement Directorate earlier. In the same case, Alok Ranjan was named as an accused along with Sandeep Singh in the FIR. Sandeep Singh was reportedly suspended following the case.

The police have shifted the ED officer's body to a mortuary for post-mortem and are probing the case to ascertain the reason behind the alleged suicide.

Source: India Today